Family
by kurama idol
Summary: This story starts right after the "Enter the Shadow Realm" saga. Kaiba has already had enough of family, what with having to deal with his stepfather, Noah, and gaining Mokuba's trust back.
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Kazuki Takahashi does. Don't rub it in.  
  
Kaiba's POV  
  
sigh Today is what people call bad. And I mean seriously bad.  
  
I mean, it started out good enough. The tournament went smoothly enough, but that's where things got a little weird. I read the writing on the god card, and I somehow knew what Ishizu was going to do in our duel.  
  
THEN, it got even more weird. I had to deal with Noah and everything else. Whew. Glad I got that over with.  
  
Then again, there's always stupid Yugi to worry about. Ugh. He keeps acting all nice and everything, and it's freaking me out, especially since I think it's contagious. He's rubbing off on me.  
  
sigh  
  
How could things possibly get and worse? 


	2. And the Officer of the Day Is

Chapter 1: And the Officer of the Day Is...  
  
Disclaimer: You know the drill. I suck up to you and tell you I don't own anything, you don't sue (at least, hopefully not).  
  
Kaiba's POV  
  
"Approximately 1 hour 'till landing," an annoying computer voice said over the intercom. Hm. Why didn't I ever think of getting better recordings?  
  
Someone tapped me on the back. I turned around, ready to yell at an unsuspecting employee.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba!" an ecstatic Yugi said. He smiled up at me with that cheery little smile. How lame.  
  
"What?" I asked, making sure I sounded extremely ticked off, which wasn't that hard considering the circumstances.  
  
"Oh nothing... I'm just wondering if you're alright after...that stuff and all."  
Great, all I need now is pity. Just perfect.  
  
"I'm FINE," I hissed.  
  
"Hey," a voice behind me said. Oh no. Not Wheeler. "Don't you go picking on Yugi when he's being nice to you and all. I don't see why he is, but I'm backing him up."  
  
"It's okay, Joey," Mr. Perky said. "Let's go see how Mai's doing."  
"Okay," Joey said, sounding as if he was trying to hide his eagerness or something. Not that I care.  
  
They two walked away, looking cheery enough to be a happy ending in a fairy tale, what with their jabbering away about some non-Duel Monsters related fact(therefore below my regard). I snorted and walked the other way, bumping into a pole.  
  
"Perfect, just perfect," I said, trying to ignore the pain and just make it to my destination, the top deck.  
Joey's POV  
  
I walked with Yugi away from Kaiba, that stupid &!%#. I still can't totally grasp why Yugi keeps trying to conversate with him. It's like trying to talk to a rock. Incredibly hopeless.  
  
We walked slowly towards Mai's room, chatting about the huge mountain of homework we would receive when we returned to school. Tea(Author's Note: I decided to use the English names.) greeted them at the door, a stern look on her small face.  
  
"No way, you guys," she said determinedly. "I'm not letting you guys go and mope around in there again." She looked directly at me. I wonder why.  
  
"But-," I protested.  
  
"NO!" she growled at me, blocking the door. "You'll just wimp out, or something. Anyway, she's having a nightmare right now."  
  
"So she's showing some signs of recovery?" asked Yugi eagerly.  
  
"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it recovery, but she is making noises and, well, being alive, I guess," Tea replied doubtfully. "But I'm still not letting you guys in right now. Maybe later, but not now. A girl's got to have her privacy, right?"  
  
"Hey-," I said as Tea retreated into the room, clicking the lock shut. "I wonder what that's all about. She's acting pretty weird," I said.  
  
"She's probably has a justifiable reason," Yugi said. "Let's go see what's going on upstairs."  
  
"Yeah, you're probably right," I agreed. "Let's go catch the action!" We hurried towards the state-of-the-art elevator and pushed the "up" button, waiting for our ride to the top of the heap.  
  
Kaiba's POV  
  
I was having the time of my life, just about...five days ago. Since then, it's gone from bad to worse. Seriously, I thought I had it good! What a laugh! At least I'll have the chance to make it up to myself when I beat Yugi's butt sooo bad that he won't be able to sit down for a month. Make that a year, no, an eternity!  
  
I ignored one of my guard's inquiry of the bruise on my forehead from walking into that STUPID pole. I went to the side of the blimp and looked over the edge. It looked mesmerizingly beautiful, but anything looks beautiful from this height, even the poisoned waters of the ocean swirling with oil and other debris from the city. Not that I care.  
  
The lulling rock of the boat and the smooth movement of the near-black waves combined to make me dizzy.  
  
"Hey!" someone called out. I ignored whoever it was, trying to restrain myself from throwing up and/or falling overboard. "HEY!" the voice screamed again, and this time, I recognized its owner.  
  
It was Joey Wheeler.  
  
Three gunshots rang in the air, jolting my senses and causing me to spin around.  
  
A man dressed in a waiter's outfit was struggling to regain control of a gun from a young woman wearing a police badge. As I watched, stunned, the officer wrenched the gun out of the man's hand and whacked him over the head with it, sufficiently knocking him out. She grinned in a self- satisfied way and headed over to me.  
  
However, Yugi beat her to me, with Joey close behind.  
  
"Are you okay, man?" Joey asked, sounding worried! What was wrong with him? "I'm fine," I replied gruffly.  
  
"Are you sure?" inquired Yugi, sounding extremely anxious, as though I had a bullet wound in my head. That wasn't so odd.  
  
"YES, I'm fine," I said, put off that people kept asking me how I was when all I really wanted to do was take a nap and get rid of the nasty headache I had developed while staring at the hypnotizing sea.  
  
The officer finally reached me and gave me a funny look.  
  
She said, "The guy who tried to kill you was posing as a waiter. From his credit card and his other passes we found on his person, we can guess that he's from a German terrorist group formed especially to assassinate the rich and famous."  
  
I noticed that she continued to say "we", meaning the police. However, I guessed that she just said it out of custom, because there was only one other officer from her division of the police on the blimp, who had just dragged the unconscious hit man out of sight below deck. (I had no actual need for local police to accompany me as I controlled my own specially trained small army. It was just habit and one of my newer workers that had caused any police to come at all.)  
  
I also speculated on what her look had meant. I hadn't seen enough to get a good idea of what it looked like.  
  
I especially wondered why I was noticing such trivial things, when I should be focusing on the facts that: a. I had just been shot at, b. my guards had noticed nothing, and c. I needed to raise the alarm and search for any co-culprits.  
  
First off, I had to dismiss this strangely helpful yet bothersome woman. Actually, she was a young girl, probably about the same age as me.  
  
"Thank you for your assistance," I said meaningfully.  
  
"Right," she said, obviously not going to be that easy to get rid of.  
  
"Go with Garth to get a bonus," I said regretfully.  
  
"How much do I get?" she insisted.  
  
"$200, okay?" I said through gritted teeth, willing to give up almost anything to get rid of this irritating girl, who thought she was something else.  
  
"Thanks," she said almost mockingly, walking quickly towards Garth. She flashed me a very weird, sarcastic smile, a variation of her other eerie look. Then, she flounced off after Garth, looking amazingly carefree compared to the mean, green, fighting machine who knocks out highly skilled murderers she'd been a couple of minutes ago. 


	3. The Capture

Chapter 2: The Capture  
  
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Yu-Gi-Oh!!! Stop making me admit it! runs off sobbing  
  
Kaiba's POV  
  
I'm seriously going crazy here! I mean, come on! That girl somehow got rid of Garth and convinced some of my workers that I had promised her $400!!!  
  
I moaned in anguish aloud at the thought of the money lost.  
  
"Oh, puh-lease, Kaiba. Have you looked in your checking accounts lately? You're loaded with MOUNTAINS of cash! What does a couple hundred bucks mean to you?"  
  
I looked sharply down at my media specialist, who just happens to be nearly indispensable, and also happens to be the most annoying back-talker there ever was (not to mention really short).  
  
"It's not the money; it's the concept." I replied coldly. Actually, that was the exact opposite of what I was thinking. To be truthful, I was pondering the concept of bashing his head in and putting his relatives in a financial crisis.  
  
Of course, you'd have to say that I was wondering who the heck this girl thought she was and where she was at the moment, if you want to be not so accurate, but somewhat poetic.  
  
And plus, there was something unnerving and strangely familiar about the girl, although I was fairly sure I hadn't seen her before (With emphasis on "I", because she could have easily seen me at one of those mandatory appearances I regularly made.).  
  
I avoided walking into another pole again by taking a bypass around a trashcan (And why is that trashcan here? It looks awfully tacky.). I pushed the elevator and fidgeted impatiently as I waited.  
  
Oh, and did I mention my "specialist" was talking all of this time?  
  
"Blah blah blah, and then the blah could be blah-ed and the blah-ness of the blah blah of blah blah would understand the importance of the other blah..."  
  
Okay, okay...so maybe he didn't actually say that, but that's what I heard.  
  
"Right, right," I consented, shaking my head as if in agreement.  
  
The elevator finally arrived and the doors opened to reveal a cluster of more experienced employees, mostly technicians and other useless people. As they knew me fairly well, they hustled out pretty fast, and I sauntered in with the one of the most irritating person I knew (besides Wheeler and Yugi, of course) trailing right behind me.  
  
When the elevator stopped at my floor, I stopped him from getting off with me. "Thanks for your help, but I have some things to do," I snarled as he attempted to follow me out down the corridor to my room. The elevator doors closed behind me, shutting out the view of a very surprised guy.  
  
I guess I had said that he could come with me to discuss some business things, but that would have to wait.  
  
A guy who happened to be older than me, stood at my door, waiting for me. He said some hurried statement about the weather forecast predicting conditions too rough to travel in.  
  
I politely asked why, and he said that there was an approaching hurricane. I kind of lost my temper there, and started yelling at him with increasing furiousness (for lack of a better word) about why we hadn't been notified of a typhoon!?!?!?!  
  
He shrunk a little, and said that the previous forecast hadn't predicted anything of the sort.  
  
I glared at him with the venom of an angry me, and stormed into my room, slamming the door behind me.  
  
If I had been another person, I probably would have burst into tears. I wasn't going to be able to defeat Yugi!  
  
Of course, me being me, I merely slumped against the wall and began to hurriedly think of an island nearby that we could stop at until the storm passed.  
  
"Big brother?" Mokuba asked from the darkness.  
  
I jumped up, and slumped back down when I saw who it was. Mokuba was always there, no matter whether I wanted him to be or not. At the time, I really wanted to talk to someone, so I relaxed (or tried to) and recollected to him my so-far story of the day.  
  
He merely stared at the floor the entire time I was talking, and I thought that he might have fallen asleep while sitting up because he didn't seem to respond to all the excitement of my story.  
  
"So," I said finally, "what do you think?"  
  
He stared at the floor for a little longer, then abruptly looked up at my eyes, which scared the pants off of me (for the sake of censorship and lack of a better clean word).  
  
"I think that your plan with the island should work out, but in the mean time, you can start investigating who tried to shoot you...I mean, there haven't been any attempted assassinations lately, and I think the group who sent today's guy must be either new or reckless," he confided, sounding eerily like me.  
  
"That's a good idea, I guess..." I replied wearily, wanting some good answers to the puzzling events.  
  
"And in the mean time, you can take a nap," he added sternly, sounding even more like me.  
  
I would have protested, but I was just too tired. It was weird though, because I was used to working 23/7. I guess it must have been catching up to me (which sounds amazingly like an old woman's words).  
  
I got to my bed, and sunk into a troubled sleep. Actually, I wasn't aware that I had fallen asleep. It felt as if I was meditating or something. I felt totally relaxed, as if nothing mattered anymore. I tried once to get up, and didn't try again, as I just managed to move my finger. After what might have been an eternity, or only a couple of minutes, I felt a stiffness setting in. I found that I couldn't breathe very easily.  
  
Eventually, I panicked, because I realized that I hadn't breathed in a while. I couldn't even open my eyes. I tried to do something, anything, but I couldn't budge!  
  
I heard a faint blaring in my ears, and I thought that I must be dying. Oh well, I thought dreamily. If only I had been able to defeat Yugi first... I felt myself moving, and muffled voices. I assumed that I was either in heaven or hell, and surrounded by angels or demons.  
  
And at that moment, I didn't really care. 


End file.
